A robot may act upon objects in an environment in various manners, depending on the capabilities of the robot, the nature of the object to be acted upon, and the nature of the environment. For example, the robot may have the option of traversing an end effector such as a claw or other tool along any one of multiple “candidate” paths between a first location and a second location in order to pick up some object from the first location and place the object at the second location. Additionally, the robot may be able to perform various aspects of the task in a variety of configurations. For example, depending on the nature of an object to be moved, the robot may have the option to position a claw around the object from a variety of angles, any of which may be acceptable. Moreover, the object may be subject to spatial constraints that allow it to be placed in a variety of locations, orientations, and/or configurations. Further, the robot may be able to strike any number of different sets of poses while performing the task. The paths, configurations (of the robot and the object), and poses available to the robot may be limited only by inherent constraints of the robot (e.g., its reach), environmental constraints (such as obstacles), and/or constraints associated with objects to be acted upon (e.g., is it permissible for the object to be tilted while moved?). However, depending on the paths, configurations and/or poses selected, the robot may move with various degrees of smoothness and/or a variety of costs may be incurred, such as wear and tear or excessive robot motion.